


The PEARLS, the ROMANCE and the MURDER

by Ninjaninaiii



Category: Whitechapel (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Cheesy Film Noir Detective AU, Crack, M/M, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-09 00:54:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4327665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ninjaninaiii/pseuds/Ninjaninaiii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chandler was mad. Real mad. “There was more to this caper than I’d bargained for.” </p><p>Filled for the prompt: Your otp in a cheesy 1920s (/mix of eras) Detective AU. A femme fatale, a detective in a grimy city, contempt, murder, crack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The PEARLS, the ROMANCE and the MURDER

**Author's Note:**

> Fic written to conquer serious-fic-inspired madness. I'm going stale with Chandler not expressing his feelings so i thought i'd get some slang-slinging compliments up in this place. For how to understand this fic, i'd recommend ctrl+f on: 
> 
> 1) http://mollsanddolls.blogspot.co.uk/2007/10/1920s-slang-dictionary.html  
> 2) https://www.miskatonic.org/slang.html  
> 3) http://comedyu.com/20091017/parodying-the-film-noir-detective-film/ [most of the best lines in this fic are inspired by this blog post]

Detective Chandler was in his office. It was a dark and stormy day and his window shook with the crack of lightning, the grime obscuring his view of the city outside. Rain pelted the panes like the ice in his bourbon against the side of his glass. It was a slow day.

There was a knock. It was urgent.

“Come in.” Chandler’s voice was surly from the alcohol.

The door revealed a slight man in a slight suit. He walked with his hips, as if his entire purpose was to be seduced. He had curls the colour of heater, a roscoe, that is to say, a gun. Shiny and black, dark against his pale skin. Dark hair always meant trouble.

Chandler was in love. It was immediate.

“Are you Detective Chandler?” the keen kitten asked, standing before Chandler’s desk.

The city was filthy. Filled with tough guys, narrow alleys, cheap bars, and greasy diners. But in this city was this man. It was fate.

“What can I do for you, doll?”

“It’s only… my sister, she’s a top-notch gal, a right dame, but she’s dizzy for this guy, a right frau of a moll.” He didn’t raise his eyes from the whorls in the floorboards. Chandler was already carrying a torch.

He’d vowed never to fall in love with a client, not since....

It wasn’t right for a detective to spoil the innocence of flaming youths like this one.

“I’m not the fuzz- they’s who you’ll need to slap a bracelet on your guy’s wrists.”

“I want him full of lead and the law ain’t about that.”

A hard case. Chandler was intrigued. “Why don’t you sit down.”

He sat down. He crossed his legs. He knew they were good. He knew Chandler knew too.

“I don’t like to see cheap hoods messing with a sweet kid like you, nor your sister.”

The kid took out a deck of Luckies, handed one to Chandler. “You got a light?”

Chandler did. He lit the kid’s, watching him suck as he held the match below his lips. “You got a name?”

“Kent.” Kent sat back, cigarette in fingers, ash dripping to the floor. “I got a price, too.”

“I’ll be honest, Tomato, I think you’re tooting the wrong ringer with these trouble boys of yours.”

“I ain’t gonna feed you a line, Mr. Sleuth. These hoods have the bees, but my sister ain’t no worker. Chicago overcoats are what I wanna pipe, not bodies under glass.”

Kent took a wallet from his breast pocket. It looked flushed. “Five gees for a slug in my man.”

Five grand… “I ain’t no contract hatchet-man.”

“Job’s duck soup. Catch a hack with me, spray some metal, five gees and…” He leaned forward. He was a dish. “My gratitude.”

Chandler gulped. “I’ll case your joint.” He knew guys like this, wouldn’t be taken for a chump.

Kent considered this on another drag. He took out a business card. It was black, like his hair. “You get there fast and you get there alone - or you got a trip for biscuits.” He pushed the card over the desk. He blew smoke in Chandler’s face.

Kent stood, stubbing the butt out. “A pleasure dealing, Gumshoe.”

-

Chandler jumped his boiler. The rain had stopped, a fog settling over the city night. Grim made grimmer, fog making monochrome.

The place was a hockshop known to be a speakeasy run by the mob. Chandler parked his iron. No-one knew his face here. It was busy.

Kent joined Chandler’s arm as he walked through the door. It’d only been a few hours since they’d parted, but he seemed out of the roof. There was a sparkle in the fire’s eye that told Chandler he wasn’t. Acting boozed was a sure way of becoming invisible.

“He’s your meat, beside the gal wrapped in oyster fruit.” Chandler followed Kent’s eyes to the sister in question. Her pearl necklace probably cost more than the crown jewels.

Either side of the head couple were a couple of goonies.

“The old man’s no skid rouge. Riley’s a daisy dame. Loyal though, both. You packing heat?”

“I got a piece, yeah.” Chandler’s hands remained in his pockets, far from the gun in question.

Kent manhandled them towards the big-cheese. “Mansell. Erica,” Kent introduced. The three tapped glasses.

“You with the gaycat gunsel, huh?” Mansell wiped his nose. “You ain’t got a drink. Come on, drip the bill.”

Chandler took the offered glass. He knew sketchy when he saw it and this was sketchy.

“It ain’t Mickey Finn,” Mansell jibed. The man was greasier than a grease joint burger and Chandler wanted to mop him up with bleach.

Chandler smiled. He took a sip, tasting money.

“Don’t get sore, Shamus.” Mr. Big gave a signal. The two goons started to work Chandler over.

-

“You got dry-gulched, good and proper.”

Chandler’s head ached. He’d been swindled, ambushed. One of the thugs had knocked him clean over the conk.

There was a guy tending to his wound. “Where am I?”

“Flophouse. Guys who dropped you here, you’re lucky you ain’t in the big sleep.”

“You live here, Mr...?” Chandler asked.

“Buchan, guilty as charged. Cheap here if you don’t mind the smell. You’re a cop.”

“Private.”

“Private, police, all the same, detective.”

Chandler was mad. Real mad. “There was more to this caper than I’d bargained for.”

“Trying to take down Mansell, he’s a big cheese in these parts.”

“It’s a personal favour…”

“For that pretty boy who dropped you off, no doubt. Got half the city’s eyes on him.”

Chandler suppressed his emotions, as he’d been taught made a good detective. He lit a cigarette, huffing it through quirked lips. “Something like that.”

“You should drop the case. Guy like you, guy like him, gotta be a boob, a bruno to take ‘im on.”

Mansell’s operation was like his bourbon. Expensive but simple. And Chandler was going to put it on ice. Buchan’s adamant plea only made Chandler all the more determined. “Help a fella out. You’re a clever guy, where can I find them.”

Buchan looked shifty. Unsure. “I can take you. I know a backdoor. Mother did always say I was a weak-sister...”

-

Chandler rapped on the door, Buchan on his tail. “You my eyes?”

“Why’s I getting tangled with some wrong numbers I’ll never know, but I’ve got your back, no problem.”

“I ain’t asking you to take the fall for me, Mr. Buchan, make dust if you have to.” Chandler raised his gun to his ear, sidling up to the door.

“I ain’t a sap, I won’t scram on you.”

Chandler gave him a nod. Buchan was more watery than soup but he weren’t no ordinary mushroom stew. He had guts, and Chandler appreciated that.

Chandler kicked the door in.

He didn’t like what he saw. ...Empty. His gun remained cocked. He sidewalked into the room, checking for enemies.

Nothing. A bust. Chandler’s overcoat swished with his movements.

“Joseph, there’s no-one here…” Buchan was stood flush centre in the room, turning circles.

Chandler squinted at the bookcase in the corner of the otherwise dingy room. It looked fishy. Who would go to a gambling den to read ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ and ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’.

Chandler removed his hat, a confident straightening of his back accompanying it. He dropped the hat besides the bookcase, catching it as it was blown towards him.

A gust of air from behind a bookcase. “Secret room,” Buchan enthused.

Chandler pulled at the copy of ‘A Murder on the Orient Express’ and the bookcase swung open. Chandler re-placed his hat on his head. The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place.

“Ah, a wise-head huh.” Mansell was sat at an ovular table in the backroom. Beside him sat Erika and Kent, on either side of them, standing where the others had been sitting, Riley and Miles.

“You’re busted, Mansell.”

Kent rose to his feet. He could already taste success. He was pulling his sister up too, dragging her over to Chandler’s side.

“You dumb mug, get your mitts off the marbles before I stuff that mud-pipe down your mush.”

The sucker with the schnozzle poured a slug, sending Chandler’s hat spiralling to the floor, filling it with daylight….

-

“You’ve written a story where my boss is a seedy detective and I’m the femme fatale -with dubious knowledge of era-specific slang?” Kent’s voice lowered to a harsh whisper.

Erika nodded, eyes bright and wild. “It ends with smut in your DI’s grimy office,” she promised.

“Three hundred quid.”

“Three hundred and Mansell’s phone-number.”

“Two hundred and his number.”

“Two hundred, his number and you invite Chandler to dinner.”

“One hundred.”

“One-fifty.”

“Deal.”

-

Chandler had never been invited to a fancy-dress murder-mystery dinner party before, but Kent’s sister had been incredibly invested in their all dressing as if part of a cheesy film noir detective novel. He’d never seen Kent more appalled and, later in the light after a lot of alcohol was imbibed, openly loving of Chandler’s appearance before.

Erika would never know just how close her erotic sequel had come to the truth.

 

 


End file.
